


stared down the barrel of my heart

by short_tandem_repeats



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, me projecting heavily onto characters, trauma and mental illness, verse: fallen leaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 21:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17947364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/short_tandem_repeats/pseuds/short_tandem_repeats
Summary: The nightmares are not the worst thing.





	stared down the barrel of my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nezuko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nezuko/gifts).



> Written for Nezu and everyone over on the ANBU Legacy Discord. 
> 
> This story is set in the post-canon of the Fallen Leaves-verse. It will make little sense without that context, but you're welcome to try anyway. Thank you to Nezu, DK, Kilerkki, and their fellow writers for inspiring this story.

All things considered, it had been one of Raidou’s easier missions. Still, Raidou had spent just under 24 straight hours fighting off chucklefuck would-be assassins, and he was glad to be home. He only stopped at his own place long enough to shower, shave, and change as quickly as he could, and then it was over to Genma’s apartment, Genma’s bed, and Genma, who would happily have jumped him immediately had Raidou not protested his exhaustion. Genma acquiesced, and the two of them had climbed into bed and drifted off together, close and comfortable, to the sound of a rainstorm picking up outside.

At least, that was what Raidou’s sleep-confused memory recalled when he jolted awake to a sudden awareness that Genma was no longer in bed with him. He grit his teeth, squelching a ridiculous surge of panic, and actually opened his eyes.

Genma always slept with a lamp lit, but the light in the room was still low enough to turn Genma into a dark silhouette against the window, standing with his back turned. Raidou took a moment to curse himself for being so deeply asleep he hadn’t even heard Genma get up, and got out of bed to go to him.

Raidou drew up next to him, carefully letting his steps make noise. Genma’s  eyes flicked over to Raidou for a second, noting his presence, and then flicked back. He looked like he was watching the rain roll down the glass. But by his hunched shoulders, the blank look on his face, Raidou knew he was deep in his own head.

“Hey, kid,” Raidou said gently.

“Hey,” Genma said. There was a faint hoarseness in his voice - had Raidou slept through him screaming? In the half-light, his golden eyes were a flat, lifeless tan. Raidou reached out slowly and took his shoulder, leading him back to bed. Genma went willingly, leaning into him just a little.

“If you had a nightmare I slept through it, I’m sorry,” Raidou said, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“‘S okay.” Genma sat, pressing their shoulders together. “You needed the sleep.” 

Raidou put an arm around him. “Hands bothering you?” he asked quietly. “With the rain.”

“A little.” Genma flexed his fingers, making joints crack. They both winced. “It’s not that bad, though. That’s not what woke me up.” He swallowed. “It was one of those ones that just…you know, that just happen sometimes.”

“Yeah,” said Raidou. The side of his face itched. “I know.”

He turned a little more towards Genma, shifting to pull him closer.“We both need sleep. You probably still have those pills someplace, right? That and a painkiller…”

Genma sighed, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand. “I don’t want sleeping pills.”

Raidou frowned. “Genma…”

“I’m not trying to be all stoic, I promise.” Genma leaned forward, into Raidou. “Fuck, I know I probably can’t get back to sleep without them. But I don’t wanna be zonked out just yet.”

“Do you want to talk about it,” said Raidou, and steeled himself. Words were perpetually, pathetically inadequate at times like these. But sometimes it seemed to help, and he’d try anything to get that dull cast out of Genma’s eyes, to make the stiff unhappiness of his shoulders relax when Raidou held him.

Genma hesitated. “You don’t have to, Rai. You’re just back from a mission, you ought to rest. I can just…read for a little bit, or pray. Train, maybe. I’ll be okay, and you can sleep.”

Raidou’s hand stroked down Genma’s spine. “Can’t sleep if I know you're hurting, fearless,” he said, very softly. “If talking will help, I want to.”

Genma shivered - from the touch, from the words, Raidou couldn’t say - and laughed softly, like he didn’t quite believe it. “Don’t understand what I did to deserve you. Okay.”

He sat up, still in the circle of Raidou’s arms, but not quite looking at him. “It’s not the dream. I don’t even really remember it now. It’s…” He huffed a breath, running a hand through his hair. “It’s that this is probably as good as it’s going to get.”

“What do you mean?”

“People talk about recovery. Getting better, getting functional. But what they leave out is…is that it never really stops.” Genma wrapped his arms around himself, hands tucked against his body and hidden. “You learn how to avoid your triggers or get through them, you figure out how to ground yourself, and whatever, and you _keep_ doing that. Because none of it really goes away.” He pulled away from Raidou, folding in on himself. Raidou’s heart squeezed painfully, but he didn’t go after Genma. 

“It’s like…I’ve got a handle on things, usually, I think I do, but I’m not _okay_ , and I never will be.” He gave an airless little laugh. “It isn’t so bad most of the time, but I worked fucking hard to get there, and I still…” He swiped a hand over his face, angrily. 

“When I have a nightmare, or when I’m messed up all fucking day because my joints are bad, or if I have a flashback because of some random bullshit, I just…I’m just fucking tired of it!” Genma wasn’t shouting, really. But his voice was tight with a frustration Raidou knew in his bones. 

“It’s that it never ends. It’s that I’m going to spend the rest of my _life_ having to work around being broken.” Hugging himself, he bowed his head down, staring at nothing. His voice had dropped to a choked whisper.

“Fuck, Rai. Sometimes I wish it would all just fucking stop.”

Raidou’s blood turned to ice, but instead of demanding to know what Genma meant, he pulled him close. Genma pressed into the embrace with a kind of desperation, like he needed to crawl under Raidou’s skin and never leave. He hid his face in Raidou’s chest. Raidou rubbed Genma’s back and shoulders, soothing chakra through stiff muscles, and if there were hot tears soaking though Raidou’s shirt, he didn’t draw attention to it.

There was an interval of muffled sobs from Genma, soft murmurs from Raidou, and rain on the window. Raidou turned over the words in his mind, bit back his fear, and held Genma tight. 

After some minutes (Raidou had any shinobi’s skill for timekeeping but was too tired to pay attention to it), Genma sat up, and started wiping his face. He looked less miserable, but brittle, and tired.

Raidou said, very cautiously, “So…do I need to be worried?”

“I’m not suicidal, if that’s what you’re not asking,” said Genma, with a tattered scrap of his usual wryness. Then slower, as if convincing himself: “No…I’m not. It would be…a waste. Konoha put too much effort into pulling me back together for me to piss it away.” There was a bitter catch in the studied evenness of his voice. 

Exhaustion and worry had nudged Raidou past the point of realizing there were questions he might not want the answer to. He needed to know if Genma was okay. He needed Genma to be okay.

“Did you wish they hadn’t?”

“At the beginning,” Genma whispered. His voice was a taut thread, and he wasn’t looking at Raidou again. He sounded like he’d never admitted this to anyone. Maybe not even himself. “When…when I first got back. Nightmares every time I closed my eyes. And they didn’t know, then…if the damage could be…” He shivered. “Thought it would’ve been better, if I’d died in Iwa.”

Genma swallowed and visibly made himself meet Raidou’s gaze. “Then, later. When I thought you were dead. But you knew that already.”

Raidou knew. All of it, he knew.

“I’d never do it,” said Genma, with a ferocity that made Raidou’s chest ache. “I’ve come too fucking far. Too many people have helped me and trusted me. Ito-sensei, Haruichi, Rina. You.” He sniffed. “Always you.”

He looked up at Raidou, and something like guilt twisted his face. “Oh gods, Rai, I could never, ever do that to you.” 

The ache spread all over. Raidou  _needed_  to touch him, hold him, prove to them both that they were alive and safe and  _together_. He reached out, and when Genma sunk into his arms, Raidou held him with that same clinging desperation. He pressed a kiss to the crown of Genma’s head, and wished, hopelessly, that it could heal all the hurt he’d never be able to touch.

Genma wept. Raidou gave in, and did too.

When the worst of it was done, they’d  managed to make their way back to lying down in bed, facing one another. Genma was absently petting Raidou’s chest. Raidou was combing his fingers through Genma’s hair.

“You know,” he said, pausing at a knot, “I’d decided that I’d never look in a mirror again. Thought I’d shave by touch my whole life, if that’s what it took. But, it turned out to not be forever, after all.”

“I know it sucks…” He paused on the memory of that particular shitshow and winced. “…alright, it *really* sucks, but things can get…actually better. Or at least less bad.”

“Yeah,” Genma said. “Yeah, you’re right, I just…I’m sorry, I…”

“Hey,” Raidou said softly, and dropped his hand, resting his fingers on Genma’s forearm. Genma quieted. “I call you fearless for a reason, you know. You’re the bravest man I know. And a little bit the craziest,” he added, which got a wet chuckle. “But…hell, Genma. All this insane horrifying shit you’ve been put through, and you’re still here. Broken, maybe, but _strong_. And…”

He hesitated, and then lifted Genma’s arm slowly, slowly, up to his face, until there was the barest brush of contact. Scarred fingertips, to scarred cheek. “And I’m with you. Even if it is forever, I’ll be with you. Don’t have to be strong always. Cause I’ve got you.” 

Carefully, gently, he clasped Genma’s scarred-healed hand between his own. “Together, we’re whole. You and me." And Raidou bowed his head, and pressed a kiss to the back of Genma’s hand.

For a moment, Genma was very still.

“I love you, Raidou,” he whispered. Then he kissed him, quick and chaste on the mouth, and then the twisting path of Raidou’s scars. 

They held each other for a long, long moment.

Raidou broke that moment by yawning. Genma laughed, still a little rough. “Try to get back to sleep. I’ll go get my pills.” He ignored Raidou’s protests, and went off to the bathroom. Water happened, for the both of them, and ibuprofen and sleeping pills for Genma. And they settled back in to sleep, cuddled together, Genma comfortably drugged and drifting, Raidou mere moments from sleep.

Somewhere in the midst of this, Raidou kissed Genma’s head again, softer.

“I love you too.”

When the morning came, they were still together.

**Author's Note:**

> “I guess victims we don’t change/but don’t take it from me/cause I’ll let you down”


End file.
